Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖

to him as thy father, Haco,” answered Sweyn, tenderly smoothing back the child’s dark locks.

The boy shivered; and, bending his head, murmured to himself, “When thou art no more! No more? Has the Vala doomed him, too? Father and son, both?”

Meanwhile, Harold had entered the boat lowered from the sides of the aesca to receive him; and Gurth, looking appealingly to his father, and seeing no sign of dissent, sprang down after the young Earl, and seated himself by his side. Godwin followed the boat with musing eyes.

“Small need,” said he, aloud, but to himself, “to believe in soothsayers, or to credit Hilda the saga, when she prophesied, ere we left our shores, that Harold—” He stopped short, for Tostig’s wrathful exclamation broke on his reverie.

“Father, father! My blood surges in my ears, and boils in my heart, when I hear thee name the prophecies of Hilda in favour of thy darling. Dissension and strife in our house have they wrought already; and if the feuds between Harold and me have sown grey in thy locks, thank thyself when, flushed with vain soothsayings for thy favoured Harold, thou saidst, in the hour of our first childish broil, ‘Strive not with Harold; for his brothers will be his men.’”

“Falsify the prediction,” said Godwin, calmly; “wise men may always make their own future, and seize their own fates. Prudence, patience, labour, valour; these are the stars that rule the career of mortals.”

Tostig made no answer; for the splash of oars was near, and two ships, containing the principal chiefs that had joined Godwin’s cause, came alongside the Runic aesca to hear the result of the message sent to the King. Tostig sprang to the vessel’s side, and exclaimed, “The King, girt by his false counsellors, will hear us not, and arms must decide between us.”

“Hold, hold! malignant, unhappy boy!” cried Godwin, between his grinded teeth, as a shout of indignant, yet joyous ferocity broke from the crowded ships thus hailed. “The curse of all time be on him who draws the first native blood in sight of the altars and hearths of London! Hear me, thou with the vulture’s blood-lust, and the peacock’s vain joy in the gaudy plume! Hear me, Tostig, and tremble. If but by one word thou widen the breach between me and the King, outlaw thou enterest England, outlaw shalt thou depart—for earldom and broad lands; choose the bread of the stranger, and the weregeld of the wolf!”

The young Saxon, haughty as he was, quailed at his father’s thrilling voice, bowed his head, and retreated sullenly. Godwin sprang on the deck of the nearest vessel, and all the passions that Tostig had aroused, he exerted his eloquence to appease.

In the midst of his arguments, there rose from the ranks on the strand, the shout of “Harold! Harold the Earl! Harold and Holy Crosse!” And Godwin, turning his eye to the King’s ranks, saw them agitated, swayed, and moving; till suddenly, from the very heart of the hostile array, came, as by irresistible impulse, the cry, “Harold, our Harold! All hail, the good Earl!”

While this chanced without,—within the palace, Edward had quitted the presence-chamber, and was closeted with Stigand, the bishop. This prelate had the more influence with Edward, inasmuch as though Saxon, he was held to be no enemy to the Normans, and had, indeed, on a former occasion, been deposed from his bishopric on the charge of too great an attachment to the Norman queen-mother Emma 83. Never in his whole life had Edward been so stubborn as on this occasion. For here, more than his realm was concerned, he was threatened in the peace of his household, and the comfort of his tepid friendships. With the recall of his powerful father-in-law, he foresaw the necessary reintrusion of his wife upon the charm of his chaste solitude. His favourite Normans would be banished, he should be surrounded with faces he abhorred. All the representations of Stigand fell upon a stern and unyielding spirit, when Siward entered the King’s closet.

“Sir, my King,” said the great son of Beorn, “I yielded to your kingly will in the council, that, before we listened to Godwin, he should disband his men, and submit to the judgment of the Witan. The Earl hath sent to me to say, that he will put honour and life in my keeping, and abide by my counsel. And I have answered as became the man who will never snare a foe, or betray a trust.”

“How hast thou answered?” asked the King.

“That he abide by the laws of England; as Dane and Saxon agreed to abide in the days of Canute; that he and his sons shall make no claim for land or lordship, but submit all to the Witan.”

“Good,” said the King; “and the Witan will condemn him now, as it would have condemned when he shunned to meet it.”

“And the Witan now,” returned the Earl emphatically, “will be free, and fair, and just.”

“And meanwhile, the troops——”

“Will wait on either side; and if reason fail, then the sword,” said Siward.

“This I will not hear,” exclaimed Edward; when the tramp of many feet thundered along the passage; the door was flung open, and several captains (Norman as well as Saxon) of the King’s troops rushed in, wild, rude, and tumultuous.

“The troops desert! half the ranks have thrown down their arms at the very name of Harold!” exclaimed the Earl of Hereford. “Curses on the knaves!”

“And the lithsmen of London,” cried a Saxon thegn, “are all on his side, and marching already through the gates.”

“Pause yet,” whispered Stigand; “and who shall say, this hour to-morrow, if Edward or Godwin reign on the throne of Alfred?”

His stern heart moved by the distress of his King, and not the less for the unwonted firmness which Edward displayed, Siward here approached, knelt, and took the King’s hand.

“Siward can give no niddering counsel to his King; to save the blood of his subjects is never a king’s disgrace. Yield thou to mercy, Godwin to the law!”

“Oh for the cowl and cell!” exclaimed the Prince, wringing his hands. “Oh Norman home, why did I leave thee?” He took the cross from his breast, contemplated it fixedly, prayed silently but with fervour, and his face again became tranquil.

“Go,” he said, flinging himself on his seat in the exhaustion that follows passion, “go, Siward, go, Stigand, deal with things mundane as ye will.”

The bishop, satisfied with this reluctant acquiescence, seized Siward by the arm and withdrew him from the closet. The captains remained a few moments behind, the Saxons silently gazing on the King, the Normans whispering each other, in great doubt and trouble, and darting looks of the bitterest scorn at their feeble benefactor. Then, as with one accord, these last rushed along the corridor, gained the hall where their countrymen yet assembled, and exclaimed, “A toute bride! Franc etrier!—All is lost but life!—God for the first man,—knife and cord for the last!”

Then, as the cry of fire, or as the first crash of an earthquake, dissolves all union, and reduces all emotion into